Tuesday, June 03, 2008

- Last week, the Postlisted the most expensive houses recently sold in Silver Spring and six of the top ten were located on Ament St. in Forest Glen. The street is so new, it's not even on Google Maps yet. These new homes in the Seminary area went for an average price of $842k. Cha-ching.

Of course, no one who lives in Silver Spring now could actually afford these, since, according to the Post, we're getting poorer. At least those in the Colesville & White Oak areas are.

I think in Silver Spring there is a strong negative correlation between how far from Bethesda/Chevy Chase your house is and your home's value.

Speaking of which, this illustration is probably a good representation of how they look across the imaginary Silver Spring frontier from the "Unincorporated Area of Chevy Chase":

- If your garage is like mine and is full of various chemicals, oil-based paints and other toxic things you'll never use, you'll soon be able to unload them them all on the county without having to go to the dump up in Rockville. The county will be collecting all manner of hazardous things at Silver Spring International Middle School (aka "Old Blair") on Saturday the 14th.

What they won't be collecting is old and busted PCs, TVs and other types of electronic crap that I also have plenty of. The good news is that the Best Buy in Wheaton is participating in the retailer's pilot program where you can bring in your old electronics for recycling- for free. This is something you ought to take advantage of, because other places charge for this type of service. Of course, according to my GPS receiver (which is never wrong) Wheaton doesn't actually exist, so in reality this is the Silver Spring Best Buy.

Seriously, you need to get rid of this stuff or one day the overloaded shelves holding it all could collapse on top of you, exposing you to a cocktail of chemicals that will turn you into a freak like the Toxic Avenger or Emil from RoboCop, who drove into a vat of chemicals and subsequently got splattered all over the place after being struck by a car. Or, you could become The Joker. Actually, that last scenario would be pretty cool.

- Washingtonian's annual "Cheap Eats" issue is out, and when you take out all the restaurants located in SSINO and restaurants with more than one location, only a handful of Silver Spring eateries made the cut. Congratulations to Mandalay, Taste of Morocco and Da Marco. The real story here, however, is that Silver Spring has reached a point where restaurants need not be "cheap" to survive in the downtown area. (Wheaton has not, hence its disproportionate representation on this list.) Cases in point are Jackie's, Ray's the Classics and Nicaro.

Regarding your illustration of how we are perceived by those farther west: I was once talking with a mom whose kid was on a sports team with my kid. The team played in Bethesda and that's where the mom lived. Since the boys got along, we discussed meeting for a playdate in a park. When I offered that there was a good location near my house, she said, completely seriously and slightly aghast, "Oh, you have parks in Silver Spring?"

It is true that large parts of East County (especially Takoma Park and Aspen Hill) are seeing decreases in average income, but I don't think Colesville is getting poorer. The study uses planning areas as a basis for their numbers, and Colesville and White Oak are lumped together in one planning area. Colesville's demographics are closer to those in Cloverly (directly to the north), which experienced a 17% increase in income between 1997 and 2005. White Oak's concentration of apartments and growing immigrant population may have contributed to some decline in income, but we can't tell because the numbers aren't available.

I mean, Cloverly is about as far as you can get from Chevy Chase while still being in Silver Spring, and the new homes out there are selling for $2 million.

On the subject of west-county prejudice, a woman who lives in Rockville once said to me, completely seriously, "Oh, I never go west of Connecticut Avenue." There be dragons there, I guess.

And I can't count how many times parents in Bethesda/Potomac have told me, "Oh, we moved here for the schools," and have no clue how offensive that is. As if my kids are condemned forever for having progressed through east county public schools.